In recent years, it is said that connection of various articles (pieces of equipment) to the Internet brings significant change to the life and industry. When a user utilizes an article, in order to safely connect the user and the article, the user has to be authenticated and a service has to be provided from the article.
However, when an article is utilized in various situations in life, the article may be too small to be equipped with an authentication device. Also, even when the article is equipped with an authentication device, authentication methods include an authentication method depending on human memory such as password input or pattern input, as well as an authentication method depending on biometric information such as a fingerprint or vein. When an authentication method is different for each article, a user has to utilize each article by an operation according to the authentication method for the article.
To cope with such a problem, fast identity online (FIDO) alliance has formulated an authentication protocol in which biometric authentication information is not passed through a network by using a biometric authentication function of a user terminal such as a smartphone, and biometric authentication information of a user does not have to be managed even on the side of a service (cloud).
Related techniques are disclosed in, for example, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication Nos. 2009-049464, 2003-143136, and 2015-203947.
In FIDO specification, a user authentication protocol between a terminal equipped with an authentication device and an authentication server is defined. Furthermore, an operable mechanism is established even in a configuration where the authentication device is connected as external equipment of the terminal. However, as a precondition, connection between the authentication device and the terminal is assumed to be established. Thus, when the user authentication is practically performed, for instance, when the authentication device and the terminal are Bluetooth (trademark) connected, after pairing is made, an authentication operation has been performed, and time and effort of a user increases.
Meanwhile, smartphones of these days include many models, each of which is equipped with a device for authentication such as fingerprint authentication, face authentication device, or iris authentication, and for equipment not equipped with an authentication device, a smartphone may be utilized as an external authentication device. In this case, it is convenient if various multiple articles (pieces of equipment) are available using one terminal (information processing device) of a user. However, performing connection processing for all combinations between the terminal and the pieces of equipment in accordance with the above-mentioned method is not practical in consideration of accompanying setting work of the user.
As another aspect, it is not preferable from the view point of security that the information processing device and the equipment are in a connectable state all the time. For instance, when the information processing device which stores biometric information is in a connection standby state for the equipment all the time, the information processing device is likely to be attacked by a guy with malicious intentions. Thus, in a state where no equipment requests to be authenticated in the surrounding it is preferable that the information processing device is not set to a connection standby state.